NERD

While her situation is sad, she has no business in an airplane. Just think what might have happened if she had this "breakdown" while baby sitting the cockpit during a potty break. The overprescribing of meds such as ADD, anti-depressants, sleeping, and sleep disorder drugs is criminal. They will give a pill for depression, a pill for sleep, a pill because they are drowsy in the morning (because of taking the sleeping pill too late) because they stayed up late due to being wired on the stimulants. Next thing you know they are on 4-6 different pills (some highly addictive) and no one knows how all these interact. Furthermore these damn psychiatrists spend no, or minimal time talking to and trying to find the root cause or a way to ween the patient off the meds. Half the time its in and out in less than 10-15 minutes without even seeing the DR. Usually, some PA or NP just handing out another 30 day prescrip.

Bucking Bar

Couple of thoughts:

If Flight Attendants are required for safety, particularly during an evacuation which is about the highest stress event known in aviation (aircraft on fire, etc ...), then why not require thorough, annual, physiological testing?

As a pilot, I can't go into my Doc's office and talk about depression over an ex-spouse, animals as "children" and I'm terrified of the thought of even being close to a bottle of Company booze. Not sure how the Certificate Holders on the other side of the cockpit doors have managed to escape this requirement for so long. In our regulation happy government, I am surprised some up and coming hard charger has not already mandated full physicals for FA's.

On a lighter note, this parody is pretty good: (anyone who has been through an airline bankruptcy will see some recurrent themes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA-Cmj-nUmc

crewdawg

Don't they all...

Poor woman? What about the two that required medical attention after this crazy chicks episode? How about the passengers that are already a little nervous about flying...now they have crazy ranting about how it's going to crash! That's who I feel sorry for...

samballs

That flight is loaded with commuters. Surprised one didnt get up punch her and just act as a flight attendant. Now she can tend to her cats

gloopy

KCM for FA's would have fixed this.

syd111

Yep it's all flight atendents I guess we won't mention some of the things pilots have done to pax or themselves.

LNL76

Amen....You beat me to the punch. Off the top of my head there was the FO (I think) who plunged his plane into the ocean in the name of Allah; there was the Colgan gem who had a collection of child porn that was the largest in Pennsylvania's history and let's not forget the pillar of society Major or Legacy pilot who killed his wife and put her into a wood chipper.

Jetjok

No one is immune to the physical and psychological stressors that can be produced by ones livelihood being placed in jeopardy, and it's amazing how different people deal with their stress. While I feel terrible for this poor flight attendant, I can't but wonder how the guys who actually are the manipulators of the controls of these jets are coping.

Back in 2004, I was sitting in the Narita Hilton bar, waiting for the rest of my crew, so that we could go out for some dinner. Anyway, this guy approaches me, and asks If I'm JJ (my real name). I say "yes" and "who might you be", to which he tells me his name and that we trained together back in 1974 in F-100's. I hadn't seen him in 30 years, but immediately remembered that when he was in training back then, he was on military leave from United Airlines. For the next hour or so we shot the bull, and caught up on each others lives. He told me that he was bidding in the top thirty on the United seniority list, and that all he did was three, three day trips from ORD to NRT and back, each month. I said that I never even met anyone bidding in the top 30 at FedEx, and that he was one lucky guy. He then went on to tell me that all he did was sit in his room, all layover long, wondering if he should kill himself, or quit, or just "run away." When I asked him why, he told me that he was due to retire in less than a year and that he was not going to be making enough money in retirement to survive. He said he was expecting over $200K/year from United, but the PBGC would only pay less than $45K/year.

Of course we could rationalize that this guy, who had been at the top of the profession, for many, many years, should have done a better job of planning, both financial, and otherwise. However, the fact was that he really needed help in coping with his situation. I've not seen him since, but hope that he's living a nice, quiet life in retirement. I certainly hope guys facing similar circumstances are coping better than my friend did.

JJ

Carl Spackler

The FA's own words were: "I'm bipolar and haven't taken my meds."

Mental illness is a truly sad condition that we've improved only slightly in decades. If your mental illness is so acute that you require medication, you cannot be allowed to work on an airplane. Period. I'm sure she's qualified to do a number of other jobs within AMR, but being a FA can't be one of them.

The FAA needs to act on this and consider it a cheap wake up call. A pilot cannot pass a physical if he needs mental illness meds. FA's need to have at least this minimal level of physical inspection and record keeping.

Carl

Golden Bear

Thank you Carl!

Yes, mental illness is horrible, but let's stop being so PC about it: there is NO WAY anyone who has this kind of potential should ever be allowed to be in a safety critical position.

We can laugh all we want about a "Diet Coke, no ice" interaction with the F/As, but their job description per the FAA is solely safety related. Imagine how this could all go down if there was smoke in the cabin, or an attempted breach of the flight deck.